Calendar for 2011 (with more events to be added)
SATURDAY, JANUARY 15,
7:00 PM
7:00 PM
Michele Longo Eder's Salt In Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife is a uniquely personal look inside the fascinating and dangerous life of Oregon’s commercial crab fishing families. Begun as a journal at the onset of the crabbing season in December 2000, Eder recounts the day-to-day challenges of providing support for her family’s two fishing vessels, as well as overcoming a life-changing tragedy when one of the boats capsizes a year later.
Salt In Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife, published by Dancing Moon Press in 2008, is the 2009 recipient of the prestigious WILLA Literary Award, in the category of creative nonfiction. More information is available at the Salt in Our Blood website.
Salt In Our Blood: The Memoir of a Fisherman’s Wife, published by Dancing Moon Press in 2008, is the 2009 recipient of the prestigious WILLA Literary Award, in the category of creative nonfiction. More information is available at the Salt in Our Blood website.
SATURDAY,
MARCH 12,
5:00 PM
MARCH 12,
5:00 PM
Phoebe Newman’s finely crafted poems have been inspired by the people and places where she has lived and worked, which have included Chicago, Atlanta, New York, and Ketchikan, Alaska. She has pursued careers in copywriting, graphic and interior design and, after receiving her MFA in Writing from Vermont College, in publishing poetry and teaching.
Her work has been widely published and has won many awards – both regional and national. For ten years she also produced and hosted a radio show called “One Poem A Day Won’t Kill You!”, which was featured on both National Public Radio and BBC/London.
Several of her poems have been set to music and performed live both in New York and in Alaska, and released on two CDs. A poem in honor of the Viet Nam Memorial appears on a monument in Ketchikan’s City park, and another in Ketchikan General Hospital. She is currently editing her fourth collection of poems which will be released this summer.
Her work has been widely published and has won many awards – both regional and national. For ten years she also produced and hosted a radio show called “One Poem A Day Won’t Kill You!”, which was featured on both National Public Radio and BBC/London.
Several of her poems have been set to music and performed live both in New York and in Alaska, and released on two CDs. A poem in honor of the Viet Nam Memorial appears on a monument in Ketchikan’s City park, and another in Ketchikan General Hospital. She is currently editing her fourth collection of poems which will be released this summer.
SATURDAY,
MAY 7,
6:30 PM
MAY 7,
6:30 PM
Christine Colasurdo, author of Return to Spirit Lake, will present a slide-illustrated journey around Mount St. Helens, both before and after the 1980 eruption, explaining how the eruption affected the landscape―as well as her own life. The event will also be an opportunity for everyone in the community to share their own stories and photos of the mountain.
Christine was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up camping and hiking with her family at Spirit Lake. In 1979 she worked at Harmony Falls Lodge, on the lake’s east shore, and was planning to return to work there the summer of 1980 but volcanism altered those plans.
Christine earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Portland State University and her Master of Arts degree in English from U.C. Berkeley in 1992. She has also written The Golden Gate National Parks: A Photographic Journey (2002). Her prose is featured in anthologies Holding Common Ground (2005) and In the Blast Zone (2008). She has given lectures in Oregon, Washington, and California about Mount St. Helens. As a volunteer, she has created three museum exhibits about the volcano, has served on the board of the Mount St. Helens Institute, and has worked to protect the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument and neighboring lands from road-building, logging, development, and mining.
Christine is launching a public memory-gathering project. If you have a memory of Spirit Lake or Mount St. Helens from before 1980, email her at her website, www.christinecolasurdo.com. More information about this year's Rowboat Writers Series is available at the RowboatGallery.com.
Christine was born in Portland, Oregon and grew up camping and hiking with her family at Spirit Lake. In 1979 she worked at Harmony Falls Lodge, on the lake’s east shore, and was planning to return to work there the summer of 1980 but volcanism altered those plans.
Christine earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Portland State University and her Master of Arts degree in English from U.C. Berkeley in 1992. She has also written The Golden Gate National Parks: A Photographic Journey (2002). Her prose is featured in anthologies Holding Common Ground (2005) and In the Blast Zone (2008). She has given lectures in Oregon, Washington, and California about Mount St. Helens. As a volunteer, she has created three museum exhibits about the volcano, has served on the board of the Mount St. Helens Institute, and has worked to protect the Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument and neighboring lands from road-building, logging, development, and mining.
Christine is launching a public memory-gathering project. If you have a memory of Spirit Lake or Mount St. Helens from before 1980, email her at her website, www.christinecolasurdo.com. More information about this year's Rowboat Writers Series is available at the RowboatGallery.com.
THURSDAY,
MAY 19,
6:30 PM
MAY 19,
6:30 PM
Karla Steinhauser's visit to Rowboat will be a special treat for lovers of great seafood and wonderful stories, as Karla shares her new book, I Am Karla’s Smokehouse, Vol. II. Anyone who has watched her at work appreciates the magic that Karla Steinhauser has with seafood, and the incredible works of art that emerge from her custom smoker at Rockaway Beach.
The book provides an intriguing autobiographical backdrop for her subsequent professional career, with stories of growing up in Portland, college years at Lewis and Clark where Karla studied art and geology, spontaneous fishing trips to the coast, and other adventures.
The heart of the book is a comprehensive, clearly-illustrated presentation of Karla’s craft and techniques for seafood preparation and smoking. In addition to the full-color instructional photos, I Am Karla’s Smokehouse, Vol. II is richly illustrated with Karla’s cartoons and artwork, recipes, and historic and scenic photographs of the Northern Oregon Coast. Karla will also he demonstrating some of her actual seafood preparation techniques at the gallery.
The book provides an intriguing autobiographical backdrop for her subsequent professional career, with stories of growing up in Portland, college years at Lewis and Clark where Karla studied art and geology, spontaneous fishing trips to the coast, and other adventures.
The heart of the book is a comprehensive, clearly-illustrated presentation of Karla’s craft and techniques for seafood preparation and smoking. In addition to the full-color instructional photos, I Am Karla’s Smokehouse, Vol. II is richly illustrated with Karla’s cartoons and artwork, recipes, and historic and scenic photographs of the Northern Oregon Coast. Karla will also he demonstrating some of her actual seafood preparation techniques at the gallery.
SATURDAY,
JULY 23,
5:30 PM
JULY 23,
5:30 PM
Brian Doyle is the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland. He is the author of 10 books, including “The Grail,” with its lengthy but descriptive subtitle, “A year rambling & shambling through an Oregon vineyard in pursuit of the best pinot noir wine in the whole wild world.” (OSU Press, 2006) His essays have been published in Best American Essays and Best American Spiritual Writing anthologies.
Mink River is set in the fictional Oregon coastal town of Neawanaka, and Doyle weaves together the stories of dozens of characters, including a 12-year-old boy who incurs a horrific bicycle accident and is rescued by a bear; the boy’s grandfather, Worried Man, who embarks on a dangerous mission to track down the source of time; a philosophizing crow that speaks English; and a policeman who is addicted to opera.
Mink River is set in the fictional Oregon coastal town of Neawanaka, and Doyle weaves together the stories of dozens of characters, including a 12-year-old boy who incurs a horrific bicycle accident and is rescued by a bear; the boy’s grandfather, Worried Man, who embarks on a dangerous mission to track down the source of time; a philosophizing crow that speaks English; and a policeman who is addicted to opera.
2010 Readings at Rowboat
Jer Killeen lives near Neskowin on the Oregon Coast and is a professor in the Dept. of English Literature & Writing at Marylhurst University. His numerous published works include A Wren, which won the 1989 Bluestem Award for Poetry, and Blood Orbits, his most recent book, from which he shared poems and insights with an appreciative gallery audience.
The inspiration for Lynn Thompson’s first collection of poems, Far from the Edge, published this past spring, has its roots in everyday thoughts and feelings and ordinary experiences of living.The poems feel like friendly conversations, words meant to be shared, spoken out loud, considered over a cup of coffee.
Clemens Starck's first book of poems, Journeyman's Wages, won the Oregon Book Award and the William Stafford Memorial Poetry Award in 1996. Other books include Studying Russian on Company Time, China Basin, and Traveling Incognito. He is often a featured author at the FisherPoets Gathering in Astoria, and was accompanied by musicians and fellow FisherPoets Jay Speakman and Jon Broderick at his Rowboat reading.
Jay Speakman and Job Broderick returned to Rowboat to present their own poetry and music based on their experiences as commercial fishermen. Jay and Jon both live on the northern Oregon Coast, and have been involved in organizing and performing at Astoria's FishPoets Gathering.
Frustrated with life, teaching, and the inability to become a writer, Matt Love escaped Portland in 1997 at 33 years of age and moved to the Oregon Coast. A year later he became caretaker of the 600-acre Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge. During his decade (1998-2008) as caretaker, he helped restore the grounds to fuller ecology, discovered a love for teaching, and reinvented himself as a writer and historian who established Nestucca Spit Press and eventually won the 2009 Stewart H. Holbrook Literary Legacy Award from Oregon Literary Arts. Gimme Refuge is his passionate 177-page account of his teaching career, experience as caretaker, and awakening as an Oregonian. The book also includes 17 original illustrations by Cindy Popp.
